Apple has always been playing a game of margins, not volume, in the computer, tablet, smartphone and smartwatch arenas, but over the past few years, we’ve seen a couple of lower-cost iDevices released with a clear target on a wider audience than usual.

According to “sources from related upstream suppliers”, anonymously quoted by the hit-and-miss Taiwanese publication Digitimes, the inexpensive next-gen iPad could be priced around $259 and see daylight sometime in the second quarter of 2018.

That would be between April and June, whereas the latest 9.7-inch iPad debuted commercially on March 24, 2017. It’s unclear what (if any) corners Apple is willing to cut to keep the pricing so low, and it’ll also be very interesting to see what happens with the current 9.7-inch generation if a cheaper spin-off is indeed in the works. Will it be discontinued after just one year of availability? What about upgraded iPad Pros, are they coming in Q2 2018 as well?

Adrian has had an insatiable passion for writing since he was in school and found himself writing philosophical essays about the meaning of life and the differences between light and dark beer. Later, he realized this was pretty much his only marketable skill, so he first created a personal blog (in Romanian) and then discovered his true calling, which is writing about all things tech (in English).